World briefs: Obama cancels meeting with new Philippine President Duterte

The Associated Press

Published 5:33 pm, Monday, September 5, 2016

VIENTIANE, Laos— President Barack Obama called off a planned meeting Tuesday with new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, seeking distance from a U.S. ally’s leader during a diplomatic tour that’s put Obama in close quarters with a cast of contentious world figures.

It’s unusual for one president to tell another what to say or not say, and much rarer to call the other a “son of a bitch.” Duterte managed to do both just before flying to Laos for a regional summit, warning Obama not to challenge him over extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

“Clearly, he’s a colorful guy,” Obama said. “What I’ve instructed my team to do is talk to their Philippine counterparts to find out is this in fact a time where we can have some constructive, productive conversations.”

Early Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the meeting with Duterte was off.

Duterte has been under intense global scrutiny over the more than 2,000 suspected drug dealers and users killed since he took office. Obama had said he planned to raise the issue in his first meeting with Duterte, but the Philippine leader insisted he was only listening to his own country’s people.

Seoul says North Korea fires 3 medium-range missiles

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Monday fired three medium-range missiles that traveled about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and landed near Japan in an apparent show of force timed to coincide with the Group of 20 economic summit in China, South Korean officials said.

North Korea has staged a series of recent missile tests with increasing range, part of a program that aims to eventually build long-range nuclear missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

Such tests are fairly common when international attention is turned to Northeast Asia, and this one came as world leaders gathered in eastern China for the G-20 summit of advanced and emerging economies. China is North Korea’s only major ally, but ties between the neighbors have frayed amid a string of North Korean nuclear and missile tests and what many outsiders see as other provocations in recent years.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the three ballistic missiles, all believed to be Rodongs, were launched from the western North Korean town of Hwangju and flew across the country before splashing into the sea.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff statement described the launches as an “armed protest” meant to demonstrate North Korea’s military capability on the occasion of the G-20 summit and days before the North Korean government’s 68th anniversary.

Mexico’s Baja battens down as Hurricane Newton approachesCABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — Hurricane Newton soaked Mexico’s western Pacific coast with heavy rain Monday and took aim at Baja California’s twin resorts of Los Cabos, where residents nailed plywood over windows and pulled in fishing boats while preparing for a possible direct hit two years after being slammed by a major storm.Newton’s maximum sustained winds increased to 85 mph (140 kph) by early evening, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The Category 1 storm was centered about 160 miles (260 kilometers) southeast of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo and was moving northwest at 16 mph (26 kph) on a forecast path that would bring it near or over the area Tuesday morning.Officials opened 18 shelters at schools in the two resorts and 38 more in other parts of Southern Baja California state, while warning people against panic buying.“There is no need for mass buying,” Los Cabos Mayor Arturo de la Rosa Escalante said. “There is enough food and fuel for the next 20 days.”Los Cabos police were stationed at shopping malls to guard against the kind of looting that occurred after Hurricane Odile struck the area in 2014 as a Category 3 storm, with 125 mph (205 kph) winds.Wave of IS-claimed bombings in Syria kill at least 48BEIRUT— Near-simultaneous bombings claimed by the Islamic State group struck in and around strongholds of the Syrian government and Kurdish troops Monday, killing at least 48 people in a wave of attacks that came a day after the militants lost a vital link to the outside world along the Syrian-Turkish border.The IS-run Aamaq news agency said the attacks included six suicide bombings and one remotely detonated blast. Most targeted security forces.The Britain-based Observatory, which maintains a network of contacts in Syria, put the overall death toll at 53, although Syrian state TV said 48 were killed. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the 5-year-old Syria civil war.Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said it was too soon to say if the attacks by the IS group were a reaction to its recent defeats along the border.But she cautioned that setbacks for IS can lead to “a dangerous new phase” by the group, which sometimes resorts to “infiltration and spectacular attacks that exploit and widen rifts” between populations, groups and security forces in both western and northern Syria.